


Unmistakably, Forever Inspirationally Mine

by Kari_Kurofai



Series: Valedictions Validated [2]
Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Consensual Kink, Consensual Somnophilia, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, Hand Jobs, Insecurity, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Safewords, Service Top, Shower Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:26:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kari_Kurofai/pseuds/Kari_Kurofai
Summary: There are fading marks on Bohn's back, too, Duen notes with some distaste. He wishes he had more time to amend that, to leave more traces of himself on Bohn’s skin, but he can feel true fatigue finally starting to settle into his bones. There’s a flight to catch in less than ten hours, a too-quiet boyfriend to dry off before they both come down with a cold, and in the grand scheme of things it’s a low priority on Duen’s list. He traces a finger over one near the base of Bohn’s spine though, a silent apology as he bundles them out of the shower. He’d rather spend time wrapped up in each other asleep, enjoying the last bit of shared space he’ll get for the next week.A Five Years Later sequel to Irreversibly and Gravitationally Yours
Relationships: Bohn/Duen (My Engineer)
Series: Valedictions Validated [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743382
Comments: 38
Kudos: 279
Collections: T/CBL





	Unmistakably, Forever Inspirationally Mine

**Author's Note:**

> So while I was writing Irreversibly and Gravitationally Yours I made an offhanded joke to HyacinthSoul about BohnDuen still leaving marks on each other after they've been together for years and she said "Bohn needs them to feel secure."
> 
> To which I gasped, "oh my god. OH NO. He needs them to feel SECURE."
> 
> And so this fucking fic was born. It wasn't solidified as a direct sequel until I was halfway done with it, and by that point it was too late to not just turn the entire thing into a continuation of the previous fic.
> 
> So here's BohnDuen five years later. Enjoy and mind the tags.
> 
> EDIT: Hey if you hate canon BohnDuen please don't tell me about it in the comments since I obviously love them enough to write over 30k total words of fanfic about them. I'll just get sad. Don't do that to me.

Duen wakes up to a sticky note stuck to his forehead. He blinks at it, at the partially obscured view of the ceiling around the edges of it tickling his nose, and sits up to pull it off. 

“You can _‘wake me up_ ,’” he reads aloud. There’s a little winky face doodled in the bottom corner and he muffles a snort of a laugh against his hand as he moves to gently set it aside on the bedside table. 

Asking for what he wants via sticky note is a new one, Duen muses, turning to take in the view of Bohn fast asleep on the other side of the bed. He’s splayed out on his stomach and almost definitely nude beneath the sheets pooling around his waist. He’d come home late last night after having to sit in on a board meeting with his father, long after Duen had already fallen asleep. He’d sent him Line updates the whole day though, and Duen’s phone had practically blown up from the litany of inane annecdotes such as “ _Everyone here looks like they regularly kiss each other’s assholes and it’s permanently puckered their faces 5555_ ” and “ _How long can a guy hold in a fart before he explodes? We’re about to find out_.”

A glance around the bedroom confirms Duen’s suspicions about how his arrival back home had gone, and he spots the suit and tie strewn across the floor with Bohn’s typical, post mandatory business meeting finesse. He also notes the bottle of lube placed very purposefully on the shelf of the headboard. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s been the sort to chronically sleep through his alarm in the morning, he would wonder how he slept through any of that.

With those thoughts in mind he checks the time on his phone, relieved to see it’s not even eight yet and that neither of them have anywhere to be for awhile. Good. He has something more important to look after for the time being.

He leans over Bohn first, braces a hand to the other side of the bed to make sure he’s well and truly asleep. There’s an early morning lull to the air, a soothing atmosphere to every slow rise and fall of Bohn’s body as he breathes, and Duen traces out patterns of sunrise on his back with the tips of his fingers until he gets to the sheet and drags it off. Other than a brief, barely there shiver that works its way up his spine, Bohn doesn’t stir. It reminds him of the first time he’d agreed to do this, the way he’d catalogued every little shift and sigh, terrified of fucking it up even though they’d spent almost an hour the night before establishing boundaries and rules. Now his movements are surer, relaxed and time-worn with a couple of years to guide them. 

He weighs his options for a moment as he grabs the lube and sets it off to the side. While this position does provide a good view in many aspects, it also denies him of the _best view_. His hand settles on Bohn’s shoulder and he eases him over onto his side instead before settling in behind him on the mattress. At this point it’s a game, a chase across quiet mornings to see how far he can get before Bohn wakes up, and he’d like to think he’s getting pretty good at it.

There’s something to be said for the times he wasn’t though, the way Bohn would try so hard to pretend to still be asleep and eventually succumb to muffling snickers into his pillows. He likes how easy it always is, how even in their fumblings they manage to make it work, and he kisses Bohn’s shoulder now in fond reverence of the then, the now, the future. His fingers slide lower, pull his boyfriend’s thighs apart, and he stills as that earns him a tiny, quiet whine. He waits for a minute, then two, and when Bohn doesn’t give any other sign he’s awake he gets a knee between his legs to hold them open. “You sleep like a rock,” he mutters, propping himself up on an elbow. It’s a very hypocritical thing to say and he knows it, but it still tastes good in the moment, especially as he watches Bohn rock back onto his hand at the first tentative probe of fingers down below. “It’s because you stress yourself out too much over stuff like the meeting yesterday,” he chides. There’s not much work to do, and he’s pleased to find that Bohn did in fact prep himself properly before he fell asleep. He pulls his fingers back out and reaches for the lube to apply a liberal amount to his erection. 

It worries him sometimes how much Bohn can manage to get riled up over things he shouldn’t. He’s good at working himself into a corner, at studying every action and interaction too carefully until all that’s left is his own doubt. It bleeds out into hunched shoulders, thin frowns and even thinner smiles, the stubborn shifting of his gaze until he refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. And then it all comes undone, unraveled with soft reassurances and the quiet warmth of contact. 

Duen's careful to go slowly, to observe and relish in the little details. There’s something about the pliancy that always gets him, the stark contrast between it and his own freshly-woken thoughts of punch first and ask questions later. He knows the exact moment Bohn wakes because of that, reads it in how his breath hitches from the evenness of sleep to the first low tones of a pant. The only way he tenses up is in his fingers, the curl of them into the gives of the pillow beside his head, and Duen chokes on a groan as Bohn rolls his hips back into him, seats himself deeper on his cock like it’s basic instinct. 

“Morning,” Bohn mumbles without even cracking open an eye. “Wha’ time izzit?”

Duen works an arm underneath him, settles the flat of his palm over Bohn’s abdomen and savors the way he rocks back into him again, the breathy little sound he makes. Bohn tangles their fingers together over the spot and Duen knows that sometimes he likes to think he can feel something there. He’d admitted it before, choked out the confession in sweat-soaked darkness that he gets off on the idea of being filled so completely that he can feel the ripple of Duen moving in him beneath his skin. He thinks of that now, grinds in on the next thrust a little harder, deeper, pulling Bohn’s thighs apart further as he searches for that angle that will reward him with more of those high and needy whimpers. “Does it matter what time it is?” he asks when he finds himself in the moment enough to answer.

“N- _ah-_ no,” Bohn chuckles. “But it might decide if I let you- _fuck_ \- if I let you come in me.”

The second Bohn had figured out that he could use dirty talk to his advantage in bed had been the exact moment Duen knew he was a goner. Then again he probably should have realized his own weakness when he got way too into the fanfic someone had written about them, since that stuff is basically just dirty talk dragged out for a few thousand words. “It’s a little before eight,” he replies. Bohn hums, clearly satisfied with that answer, and arcs an arm over his head to thread his fingers through the back of Duen’s hair. He’s deft with what he wants, guides him down until Duen sinks his teeth into the curve of his neck, and he pants out a moan to show his approval when Duen sucks a mark into his skin.

“So good to me,” Bohn sighs, the exhale of the words stumbling into that pitch of, “ _Hah-ah!_ ” that makes white-hot heat coil low in Duen’s gut. He uses his grip on Bohn’s thigh to push his leg up against his chest and hooks his chin over his shoulder to watch the way he bites his lip on the next roll of his hips. The hand in his hair tightens and slackens with every grind, nails scrabbling at the nape of his neck when he presses in particularly deep, and he drinks in the sight of Bohn’s mouth falling open on a harsh exhale of a whine. “ _Baby_ ,” he chokes on the inhale, and that too licks like lightning through Duen’s veins, makes him tighten his hold on Bohn’s thigh, clench their fingers together over his abdomen. “F- _fuck_!”

“You close?” Duen asks just because he can, because he likes to hear it. He can tell Bohn is close without verbal confirmation, can feel it in how he’s clenching around him, in the thrum of his heartbeat that echoes into his own ribs where they’re pressed back to chest. Also, god damn it, he just likes to be told what to do, to be urged on by those broken curses and restless praises. It’s a fair trade off, he supposes, him being malleable in words and Bohn in body. They work well together that way, survive in languid loops of give and take that measure out equally. “Tell me what you want,” he urges when Bohn merely whimpers, turns his face away to hide it against the pillow. God, he’s _really_ close. He snaps his teeth over an earring when he still doesn’t get a response, pleased when it relinquishes him a startled moan. 

“Ju- _hah_ \- just like this,” Bohn gasps. “I’m almost- _ah_!” He cries out, seizes up, and Duen presses a kiss to the line of his throat as he shakes apart. It’s always like this, always sudden and intense and earth shattering, like Bohn can’t help but tip over the edge the first chance he gets, as restless in sex as he is in everything else. Duen moves their interlocked hands out of the way and watches with half-lidded eyes as Bohn paints his own stomach with long, staggered stripes of white. “ _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ ” he swears on every clench, every ripple of his body that leaves Duen muttering choked profanities of his own into his shoulder. He’s good at this, good at dragging Duen over the precipice right on his heels, taking everything Duen offers as if he’s starving. “Come on, baby,” he pants, still trembling with aftershocks even as he grinds back into him, always eager for that oversensitivity that borders the tentative line between pain and pleasure. “ _Come on_.”

And Duen is nothing but happy to oblige. He grabs at Bohn’s hips, pulls them as flush together as he can, drives himself in as far as he’s able to go. There’s the high possibility he will never get enough of this, never grow tired of the way Bohn practically mewls when he comes, how he squeezes around him over and over and over like he’s trying to milk him dry. And he never wants to, either. He wants to treasure every sound, every shudder, press kisses to Bohn's flushed cheeks until those choked gasps turn into laughter as the sun peeks over the horizon, and then do it all over again the next day. 

“You’re smothering me,” Bohn snickers, but he doesn’t shy away from the insistent butterfly pecks. If anything, he leans into them. “Duen!”

“I’m spoiling you, hush,” Duen hums, smacking one more kiss to the corner of Bohn’s mouth.

Bohn tilts into him, gets a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him down for a proper kiss. He drags it out, keeps him there with swift bites to his bottom lip that Duen worries might be a bit obvious later. After a moment he leans back for a breath, levers a hand against Bohn’s side with a murmured apology as he pulls out before he can get hard again, and Bohn whines. “We don’t have time,” Duen scolds, even as Bohn tackles him back on the mattress, clearly filled with other ideas. He wiggles his eyebrows and Duen frowns. “I have to meet Thara at eleven,” he reminds, following Bohn’s wandering hand as it scoots dangerously southwards and catching it by the wrist. “Bohn, come on, I have to get his help on my presentation for the conference.”

He tilts his head as Bohn sits up “Oh. That’s . . . Soon, right?”

Duen rolls his eyes. It’s amazing, really, how Bohn can’t keep track of their calendar to save his life but knows the important dates like birthdays and anniversaries down to the exact second. “Next Sunday?” he reminds gently, and something in his chest twists as he notes the way Bohn tenses up, catches the faint flash of unease in his eyes. “The conference is only a week,” he soothes, sweeping his hands down Bohn’s sides. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Also he needs it to fucking graduate, but Bohn knows that. Still, his attention follows the way Bohn lifts a hand and rubs it over his neck as he shifts his gaze away. “I won’t flirt with any other boys,” he deadpans.

Bohn’s gaze is on him again immediately, “Yeah no fucking shit you won’t. That’s not why I- nevermind . . .” He sighs and flops down over top of him, forcing a huff from Duen with his weight. “You sure you don’t wanna go again?” he asks, all doe eyes with his chin propped up on Duen’s sternum.

They should maybe talk about this, Duen thinks, especially when he notices Bohn running a hand over his neck again while he waits for an answer. Something’s wrong, he just can’t put his finger on what. All those thoughts leave his head in an explosion of color though as Bohn wiggles back just enough to bump his ass against his dick. Goodbye brain, hello hormones. This is what he's studying biology and anatomy for, right? Right.

Duen fits his hands over his hips and raises an eyebrow. “If you want it you’re going to have to do it all yourself,” he warns. 

Bohn smirks, all teeth, and braces a hand on Duen’s chest. “Oh, you _know_ that’s a lie.” He reaches behind him, lines them up, and practically purrs as he sinks down all in one go. “ _Fuuuuck yes_.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a slut?” Duen says, biting the inside of his lip to try and keep himself from groaning. Something must show on his face though, because Bohn’s smirk turns almost cheshire with delight. 

“Only you all the time,” Bohn grins. “But you _love it._ ” He grinds down, swivels his hips a little, and Duen fumbles his phone from where he’s trying to grab it off the bedside table. Fuck.

Whether or not he does love it is a secret that will die with him. Mostly because appearing impassive to it just riles Bohn up more. Phone retrieved he holds it studiously in front of his face. “I have emails to answer. Have fun.” His voice comes out a little more strained than he’d like, but he thinks the point gets across.

Or not. Because in the next second Bohn has a finger on the screen, is leaning over him for a moment before he rocks back down and drags his nails over Duen’s chest. “Or you could- _hah_ \- film me and take a video with you to your conference.”

Duen purses his lips, sucks in a steadying breath, and opens his email app with renewed and only slightly unhinged focus. “No.” He really does have emails to answer, the upcoming conference is stressing him the hell out, what with his degree and official entry into the medical field riding on it. Fuck, he should not have thought those exact words, not when his boyfriend is currently riding- 

He drags his attention back to the emails again, answers one and gets halfway through another before Bohn chokes on a truly filthy moan. Duen wonders, unfortunately not for the first time, what he did in a past life to be cursed with the horribly inability to deny his boyfriend anything. He sets his phone aside, ignoring the breathy sound that elicits from his partner, and hooks his fingers around Bohn’s trembling thighs. They’ve done this song and dance before, and he only has to wait a second for Bohn to lean into him, grip his shoulders for purchase, and then Duen rolls them over to pin him to the mattress. “You’re the worst,” he chides, hitching Bohn’s legs up around his waist and watching as he closes his eyes, his whole body rolling up into him as Duen sinks back inside fully. 

“You lo- _ah_ \- love it,” Bohn gasps. “You think I’m hot as fuck.”

“I think you’re a pain in my ass,” Duen mutters, and knows as soon as he’s said it that he’s chosen his words wrong.

Bohn cracks his eyes open, just enough so Duen can really appreciate how dark his pupils are, the way they contrast the heady flush on his cheeks. “You could be more of a pain in mine,” he smirks, and then whines when Duen promptly bends him in half. “ _Hah_ \- oh _god_. Fuck, baby, just like that.”

He only realizes after he has his hand around Bohn’s dick, is watching him spill over his fingers and choke on a string of profanities, that he just played himself exactly as Bohn had predicted he would. _For fuck’s sake_. Duen pulls one of his legs up, presses it to his chest so he can fold over him and taste those hoarse, hitching pants for himself. “Well?” he asks, stalling just long enough to turn his head and bite at Bohn’s inner thigh. His boyfriend is shaking and oversensitive, his lips parted around every ragged exhale as he comes down from the last of his aftershocks. “Satisfied?”

“Never. Finish,” Bohn demands. His hands reach up to tangle in Duen’s hair, reel him in for a kiss that makes him feel like he’s drowning. He’s always like this, always grasping for more even though Duen would literally bend over backwards to give him almost everything he desires. Almost. He draws the line at the time Bohn had insisted he rest and let him cook. He didn’t want the god damn apartment burnt down. Hands scrabble at his back on the next thrust, the one after, nails digging into his skin until he’s sure there will be crescent bites on his shoulder blades for the next few hours. Bohn nips at him like he’s never hungered for anything else, licks at his mouth like he means to consume him, and Duen can taste every stuttered whine and whimper as if they were breathed from his own lungs.

“ _Greedy_ ,” Duen gasps when he breaks away for air. There’s something heavy hanging between them all of a sudden, something that has Bohn clinging to him like he’s the only anchor in a storm, kissing him as if he’ll turn to seafoam if he doesn’t. He nuzzles into the side of Duen’s neck, buries his face there with whispered pleas that come out as mostly garbled nonsense. But Duen can make out some of it, can read the way he shudders and presses closer, tilts his neck to the side where Duen has his lips pressed to the skin, and who was he to ever deny him these little pleasures.

He comes with his teeth dragging over a fresh bruise, the faint taste of copper and salt on his tongue, and Bohn clenching around him so hard spots dance in his vision. It takes a lot of concentration to let them down slowly, to keep one arm braced to the mattress and stay on his knees, his other hand rubbing soothing circles over Bohn’s back because he’s still shaking, still has his legs locked around Duen’s waist like a vice.

“Hey,” he murmurs, his alarm growing when he gets no response other than the arms around his shoulders tightening. “ _Bohn_.” Something is _wrong_. “Do I need to cancel my plans?” He’s loathe to do so, and a nervous thrum settles in his chest at the very thought. He needs to go over his presentation with Thara so he can edit it as soon as possible. But if something’s wrong, he’d rather be here.

Bohn untangles from him abruptly, flops back across the pillows with a cocky smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Nah,” he grins, “I gotta go pick up Ben in a couple hours, you’re good.” He tucks his hands behind his head, and Duen doesn’t miss the way he curls his fingers over the side of his neck, presses the pad of a thumb to the freshest mark there. It’s not too unusual, he’s been doing that ever since the first time he’d insisted Duen give him a hickey. But something still feels off. 

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. I’m just tired,” he stretches out across the mattress for emphasis, and Duen almost immediately shoves him towards the edge of the bed in vehement protest.

“Do _not_ fall asleep like that,” he complains, already noting the wet spot on the sheets that, to be fair, is technically his own fault. “You’re getting cum on the sheets I just washed!”

Letting himself be herded towards the bathroom on unsteady legs, Bohn laughs, "It’s _your_ jizz!” The unspoken tension in the air is fading, chased away by the brightness of the morning, and Duen considers holding onto it, unraveling its intricacies so it won’t hang over their heads again. Except that he knows it’s never that easy, that Bohn will just avoid his eyes and brush him off until he’s ready to actually talk. So instead he pushes him towards the shower and leaves a raspberry of a kiss to his shoulder. 

“You’re the one with a thing for barebacking,” he reminds. “Also it’s your turn to change the sheets.”

That earns him a full out offended snort. “It is not!”

“It is. And if you do it I’ll shower with you.”

“Deal.”

~~~***~~~

He notices it again two days later when he stumbles back from the campus library well after sundown, his bag stuffed with books and his laptop tucked precariously into the front of his coat. Bohn’s sitting at the counter when he comes in, one leg pulled up to his chest on the stool and a bowl of instant noodles in front of him. Duen pauses just long enough to take his shoes off before he makes his way over. His bag set aside and his laptop safely placed on top of it, he waves a hand over the top of the bowl. There’s no steam, it’s long grown cold, but Bohn smacks his hand away anyways, frowning as if he still intends to eat it. He doesn’t even have any utensils out with which to do so.

Duen wants to demand an answer, pick apart the situation until he can understand what’s going on in the simplest terms, but he knows all too well that it’s not that easy. So instead he just sighs and tangles his fingers in Bohn’s hair, pulls him close till his head rests against his chest and he can press a kiss into the top of his hair. “Let me make you some actual food to eat, okay?”

It gets the desired reaction, and Bohn perks up immediately. “Khao pad?”

“You don’t want something more complicated?” He has a little time to spare before he dives back into working on his presentation, he doesn’t mind spending it making his boyfriend food. Plus he knows Bohn likes to watch him cook.

“No, khao pad is fine. With eggs,” Bohn adds, a cheeky smirk blooming across his face as he stands up.

Duen raises an eyebrow but lets Bohn octopus himself against his side. He pointedly ignores the wandering hands though, and after a moment reluctantly pulls them off and settles them somewhere less tempting. “I’m sorry,” he soothes when Bohn mutters a little cursing protest against his shoulder. “I have to work on my presentation after dinner.”

“I know,” Bohn grouses. He peeks at him through his bangs, one of his truly exceptional pouts in place, and Duen swiftly turns his gaze to the ceiling. 

“It’s either food or sex,” Duen warns, “and I know you haven’t eaten today.”

Bohn scowls and gives him a side-eye that only confirms Duen’s suspicions. “Fine. But I want a kiss.”

Ah, and who is Duen to deny him that? He turns them around, shuffles them back until Bohn is pressed against the counter and his hands are fisting in the sides of Duen’s shirt. “Just one,” he teases as he leans in, but Bohn’s already closing the distance, taking the last syllable from his tongue. Okay, maybe he can do two. Or four. Or seven.

He pulls away eventually, curls a hand over the back of Bohn’s neck as he tries to chase him. “Hey, let’s eat, okay? I’ll let you cut the onions.”

Bohn rolls his eyes but lets him go. “Oh, what an honor.”

The air seems to have settled again, and throughout dinner Duen waits patiently for Bohn to bring up what’s on his mind. He thinks he almost does, once, when they’re doing the dishes and he suddenly finds himself with his boyfriend leaning just a little too heavily into his side. But when he turns to ask him what’s wrong, Bohn just shakes his head against his shoulder until his hair is tickling Duen’s neck and they’re both laughing. 

~~~***~~~

The next night he falls asleep on the sofa surrounded by textbooks and his laptop, and wakes up to Bohn quietly cleaning everything up in the first few rays of sunrise. He must make some sort of noise when he jolts awake, because Bohn doesn’t even look at him to see if he is before he starts talking. Although perhaps his talking is what woke him in the first place, Duen thinks. “You’re going to make yourself sick,” Bohn chides, almost under his breath. “I can’t believe I made you cook dinner when you should have been-” He pauses to tear apart a sticky note and paste it over the corner of the textbook Duen had left open, marking the page as he shuts it and sets it on the top of the pile he’s making on the coffee table. “Just _tell me_ if you need me to fuck off for a bit, too, okay? I can go be a clingy asshole elsewhere for a few hours, take the kids out or something. I have hobbies.”

Duen stays quiet, lets him rant, until Bohn reaches for the laptop in his hands to close it. “Hey,” he says, hushed, and Bohn’s dark eyes snap to his in an instant. Fuck, he can hear the way his breath catches in his throat, the audible, wet hitch, and his heart aches. “Come here.”

The laptop is set aside and Bohn is on him in an instant, all but collapsing into his waiting embrace. “Stop that,” Duen mutters into his shoulder. “I don’t want to hear it. Also, when have I ever hesitated to tell you off if you’re doing something I don’t like?” He runs his hands over Bohn’s back as he speaks, smooths out every crease in his t-shirt and traces the slowly easing trembles that lick up his spine. 

“Never,” Bohn mumbles against his neck after a heartbeat. “In fact you’re annoyingly good at it.”

“Exactly,” Duen huffs. “So don’t worry about it. I like having you around. I wouldn’t have moved in if I didn’t, okay?”

“Kay.”

There still seems to be something left unsaid, but Duen can’t put his finger on what. He presses lazy kisses to Bohn’s neck whenever he tilts into him in that way he does when he’s really craving attention, but only receives barely smothered sighs in return. So he just holds him tighter, wraps an arm around his back and tangles his fingers in his hair to keep him as close as possible as he finds himself drifting back into an overworked, exhausted doze while the sun climbs over the horizon. 

~~~***~~~

The day before he’s due to leave for the conference Duen closes his laptop over the last finishing touches of his presentation and sinks down into the sofa cushions with a groan. It’s almost midnight, and his neck and back feel so tight he kind of wants to cry. Bohn is curled up in the opposite corner of the couch, stubborn to the last in his refusal the past few nights to sleep alone in their bed for any amount of time. After a moment Duen sits up, slumps over until he can drop his head onto Bohn’s shoulder. They should probably go to bed, he thinks blearily, but his whole body aches from being bent over his laptop for the last five days and he’s pretty sure if he lays down now he’ll fuck up a vertabrae or something forever. 

“Shower,” Bohn mutters. He’s shifting awake in starts, rubbing the heel of his hand to his eyes and threading his fingers in Duen’s hair with a yawn that works its way down his whole body in a shiver. When Duen doesn’t respond he clarifies, “If you shower tonight you can cuddle me longer before you leave tomorrow.”

Oh okay. Cool. Duen definitely needed to have that weighty reminder dropped on him when he’s already so exhausted he wants to cry. Great. He shifts until he can get both arms around Bohn’s middle, pull them together so he can bury his face in his chest. “I’ll call you every day. Twice,” he promises. 

“You’d better.”

He wonders if he’ll be able to sleep okay, if either of them will. Had there been more time, less riding on this, he would have prepped some meals Bohn could heat up while he’s gone. As it is though they’ve had takeout for the past two nights and fallen asleep in the living room rather than their bedroom. Fuck, it’s been almost a week since they’ve even . . .

“Shower,” he agrees, levering himself up and getting to his feet. He holds out his hands and Bohn takes them without hesitation, lets himself be pulled up until they’re standing chest to chest and a wicked little gleam has lit his eyes.

“Oh?”

“Don’t expect too much,” Duen warns. “I feel like death warmed over. But I can take care of you, okay?”

Bohn is frowning before he’s even finished speaking. “You don’t have to.”

“I _want_ to,” Duen insists. Because he does. He really, really wants to. “I like taking care of you,” he reminds, as if that hasn’t been obvious from day one. 

The frown twists a little, and when Duen leans in to try and kiss it away he can almost taste the hesitation. “Let me take care of you,” he murmurs against the corner of Bohn’s mouth as he rucks up his shirt in the back, finds solace in pressing his fingers to the warm expanse of bare skin between his shoulder blades. “I want to make you feel good before I go.”

Something about that wording works, because Bohn finally eases into him, settles his weight into the coil of his arms and heaves in a shuddering breath. “Yeah, okay.”

There’s something soothing in the little things of their everyday life, a lull that finds the warm spaces between them and makes itself at home. Duen likes showering together more than he thinks he reasonably should, finds comfort in the ease at which they found a routine in it. Sometimes it’s almost better when they don’t fool around, when they’re too busy lathering each other’s hair and using the soap to make it stick up and curl in the most absurd ways. But he likes this too, likes the way the hot water pouring down works all the knots out of his back as he presses Bohn up against the tiles. 

Duen settles a hand on his abdomen, pulls their bodies flush together and relishes in little shiver it elicits, the hitch of breath he can feel reverberate from Bohn’s back and into his chest. “You don’t have to,” Bohn says again, just in case he’s changed his mind. Duen appreciates it, he really does, but his attention has already been captured by Bohn’s steadily hardening cock. 

“Maybe I want a good memory to tide me over while I’m away,” he teases as he draws his boyfriend closer, wraps deft fingers around the base of him. Bohn jerks forwards into his grip almost immediately, and Duen smiles into the kiss he leaves against his shoulder. “Let me make it good,” he murmurs, and if he weren’t so tired the choked little groan that request draws from Bohn’s lungs would probably drive him wild. “Tell me what you want.”

“F-fingers,” Bohn whispers as Duen settles his chin on his shoulder, takes in the way Bohn’s hips stutter into every stroke as he drags the tip of his thumb over the head of his cock. “I know you can’t fuck me but I want-” He breaks off in a whimper, and Duen can feel his muscles clenching where his hand still lies on his stomach. 

There’s a bottle of lube on the tile shelf, a testament to how they’ve pretty much ruined every corner of this apartment, and Duen is more than adept enough at this by now to pop the cap open and coat his fingers one-handed. Bohn rocks back into the first press against his entrance, takes two fingers with a hiss that has him dropping his head against his arm. “Careful,” Duen chides, “It’s been a few days.”

Bohn shakes his head at that, grinds back further until Duen’s hand is trapped between their bodies. “S’okay. I need it. I- _ah,_ ” His legs buckle, and Duen gets a thigh in between them, keeps him standing. “ _Fuck_ , please, please please.”

They’ve rushed before, fumbled their way through things due to lack of time, but it always leaves Duen feeling unsatisfied in more ways than one. And he doesn’t want that now, doesn’t want to leave with that lingering feeling of being incomplete. He’s tired, but he’s not so exhausted that he can’t do this, can’t make Bohn come apart and do it _right_. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, punctuates it with a twist of his hand, a careful press of fingers just a little deeper. “I’m not going anywhere yet. I’m right here. Take your time.”

There’s something about the slow buildup that he finds especially delicious, the casual climb towards ecstasy that he likes to burn into his mind every chance he gets. It’s the way Bohn’s quiet sounds pitch higher as the minutes tick by, how his steady breaths turn into broken pants and choked utterances of his name. Duen lets him rock back onto his hand when he gets a third finger in, tastes the moan that shudders through him where he has his mouth pressed to the juncture of Bohn’s neck. “You’re doing so good,” he praises, delighted when Bohn’s cock twitches in his hand, a drip of precum quickly washed away by the water. He rolls the pads of his fingers over that sensitive spot inside and then does it again, counts out the beats to set just the right rhythm that leaves Bohn quaking and on edge. “So good,” he repeats. “Tell me what you need.”

As always, Bohn is better at speaking in actions over words. He gets a hand off the tile to claw it down over his own chest, and Duen frowns as he watches him trace out old and fading marks on his skin before he lifts it back up and paws at his neck where the most recent bruise is starting to yellow at the edges. “Please,” he begs, his fingers tangling in Duen’s hair, tugging until he presses his mouth to the proffered expanse of skin. “ _Please_.”

It’s not the first time he’s renewed a mark, far from it, but something about the action feels different this time, more desperate. Duen does as he’s asked though, drinks his fill of Bohn’s needy whimpers as he does so, and then curls his fingers in deeper, harder, and relishes in the startled “ _Fuck_!” Bohn chokes on as he spills over his hand. He milks it from him for as long as he can, circles that spot insistently until Bohn’s little jerks and shivers lessen into oversensitive whimpers. He still gets a hiss of reproach when he pulls out though. Duen backs off to rinse his hands under the spray of the shower and is unsurprised when Bohn crowds him up against the opposite wall as soon as he turns the water off. He holds him for awhile, lets the steam die down until it starts to fade from the glass, and does his best to soothe away every poorly suppressed tremble that flickers through his boyfriend’s frame. 

There are fading marks on his back, too, he notes with some distaste. He wishes he had more time to amend that, to leave more traces of himself on Bohn’s skin, but he can feel true fatigue finally starting to settle into his bones. There’s a flight to catch in less than ten hours, a too-quiet boyfriend to dry off before they both come down with a cold, and in the grand scheme of things it’s a low priority on Duen’s list. He traces a finger over one near the base of Bohn’s spine though, a silent apology as he bundles them out of the shower. He’d rather spend time wrapped up in each other asleep, enjoying the last bit of shared space he’ll get for the next week. 

So he does. He tangles their bodies together as soon as he’s satisfied with the fluffy, semi-dry state of Bohn’s hair, tossing the towel aside with uncharacteristic frivolousness before he wraps them up in the comforter. “I’ll miss you every second,” he swears when Bohn buries his face in the crook of his neck and inhales too shakily to be ignored. “But it’s only a week. I’ll be back before you know it.” He can feel him frown against his skin, the stutter of his heartbeat as he tightens his arms around him in a desperate attempt to somehow be closer. “We’ve done this before, remember?”

“That was when we weren’t dating,” Bohn mutters reproachfully into his shoulder. “I’m addicted to you now. This is your fault.” Duen runs a hand down his back, slowly as if he’s counting every knob of his spine and naming them one by one, and Bohn relaxes a little. “I’ll be good. Don’t be shocked by the pile of takeout boxes when you get back though.”

“You’re not going to take the trash down?” 

“I’m not _that_ good,” Bohn huffs. He grows quiet again, so much so that Duen almost thinks he’s fallen asleep by the way his breathing finally evens out. And then, as if he’s trying to break Duen’s fucking heart, he whispers, “Can you tell me you love me?”

Duen surges into him, fits them together until he’s absolutely certain that they’re touching in every way they possibly can. “ _Bohn_ ,” he gasps, “Of course I love you. God, why are you-” 

“I _don’t know_ ,” Bohn interrupts hoarsely. “I’m _sorry_.”

He’s shaking again, every breath hitching on something that’s too close to a sob, and Duen understands finally that whatever has been bothering him Bohn doesn’t actually have a way to explain. Something has him unnerved, but if he can’t figure it out Duen can’t really do anything to help. He can only offer what’s asked of him. So he does, he gives what comfort he can provide and desperately, desperately hopes it’s enough. “I love you so much,” he affirms, tightening his hold, kissing every centimeter of skin he can reach without letting go. “And I’ll tell you again tomorrow, the day after, as often as you need it until I come home. I promise.”

He wishes he could do more, wishes he had an answer to every problem, a balm to every wound. But he doesn’t. So he lets Bohn cling to him, listens to him whisper, “ _I love you, I’m sorry_ ,” like a mantra and answers him in kind until they both drift off to sleep. 

~~~***~~~

Bohn is all bright smiles and laughter when he sends him off the next morning, the only sign of the drain of the night before in the redness that lingers in his eyes. “I’m fine,” he assures when Duen hesitates on the sidewalk outside their building, the taxi driver leaning on the horn with unprofessional impatience. He holds their hands between them, presses a kiss to Duen’s mouth and smirks when he pulls away. “I’m really proud of you, you know?” he says. “You’re going to do so good. And then I get to brag about having a hot doctor for a boyfriend.”

“You just want to show me off,” Duen sighs with mock distaste. 

“What good is a trophy boyfriend if I can’t parade him around town?” Bohn grins.

Duen aims a swat at him and changes course at the last second, curling his hand over the back of his neck to pull him in for one last goodbye kiss. “I’ll call you as soon as I land,” he promises. “But don’t hesitate to text me if you need anything else.”

“I’ll save my calls for emergencies,” Bohn agrees, reading between the lines. “I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

“Try not to get sick from takeout,” Duen says as he finally forces himself to take a step back. “I’ll be really pissed if I get back and you have an upset stomach.”

Bohn’s eyes light up, “Oh? Making plans to ravish me as soon as you return?”

“I might be.”

He leaves on that note, admires the pretty and pleased flush that tints Bohn’s cheeks, and saves that image in his mind to dream about on the plane.

~~~***~~~

The first time he calls Bohn has Ben with him and he’s _livid_. Duen’s barely off the plane and he has an upset boyfriend and a stressed out kid yelling in his ear. “Slow down,” he urges as he makes his way to baggage claim. “Both of you. What happened?”

“He got into a fucking fight!” Bohn snaps. “Split lip, black eye,” there’s a rustling sound on the other end of the line, “Where is the fucking first aid kit, I swear to god.”

“Under the sink in the bathroom, right hand side, second shelf.”

Bohn heaves out a sigh of relief, “Thanks babe. Anyways, I let him ride his bike around the block because he’s eleven and should have responsibilities and junk, and then this happens. I just-”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. But he won’t tell me why he got into a fight either. I’ve been told to shut up, oh,” he draws off like he’s counting, and Duen tries not to laugh as he grabs his bag from the carousel, “about seventeen times now?”

“He takes after you.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Bohn says with emphasis. 

Duen can hear Ben over the line again, and his heart clenches at the sound of hitched and muffled sobs. “Is he okay?”

“Mostly. I think whatever started the fight upset him more than getting punched did,” Bohn says, and the statement is accompanied by a very vehemently wailed, “ _Shut up_!” from Ben.

“Can you put me on speaker?”

Bohn mutters something that sounds like, “Stop flinching it’s antiseptic,” before he says, louder, “Don’t you have to drive to the conference? I don’t want to distract you.”

“P’Thara can drive,” Duen says, and then promptly turns to point towards the rental car desk. Thara gives him a very unimpressed stare but doesn’t object, so Duen counts it as a win. “P’Thara is going to drive,” he confirms over the phone.

There’s a clatter of the phone being set aside, and then he can hear the echo of Ben’s shuddering sobs and Bohn’s continued scoldings of, “Hold still!”

“Don’t forget ice for the black eye,” he instructs, and there’s some more shuffling that fades away for a moment then returns. “Keep it on for ten minutes, then off for another ten. Repeat until the swelling goes down.”

“Kay,” he hears Ben mutter, and he can’t help but heave out a breath of reprieve. 

It’s quiet for a bit, the ambient noise of the home he’s left behind punctuated only by the soft sounds of a bottle being capped and the first aid kit being closed. “You want to clue us in on why you got into a fight?” Bohn asks after a bit. There’s no response. “He shook his head,” Bohn informs him.

Duen lets Thara lead him through the parking garage to the car, tucks his phone against his shoulder as he loads their suitcases into the trunk. “Did they say something bad about you?” he asks when the silence lingers too long again.

“He shook his head again,” Bohn says.

Something cold clenches inside Duen’s chest, and he remembers sitting on the edge of the sofa with Daonua not too many months ago, assuring her that the harsh words of children weren’t his concern while she’d cried into her hands. She’d won a prize for her essay on her family, but earned the ire of a close friend for what she’d written within it. “Did they say something bad about Bohn and I?” he asks. Out of the corner of his eye he watches Thara tense up in the driver’s seat, cast a concerned glance his way, and he shakes his head and pastes on his best smile.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ben mutters, but his voice falters too tellingly to ignore. 

Bohn sighs audibly. Duen can picture him dropping his chin into his hands, how his eyebrows furrow up when he tries to think of the best thing to say in a situation he’s never been good at handling himself. “You shouldn’t fight my battles, Ben,” he says after a moment. “You’re my k- cousin.” Duen is really glad they’re having this discussion over the phone, because Bohn would be mortified by the way he presses a hand to his mouth to stifle a smile at the near slip-up. “And I’m an adult,” Bohn continues. “I’m supposed to be looking after you, not the other way around. Alright?”

Ben remains quiet for awhile longer. “They shouldn’t say things like that,” he says, his voice still breaking at the end. There’s a shifting sound, and Duen thinks that Bohn has moved in to hug him, because the next time Ben speaks his words are significantly more muffled. “It’s not right!”

“Excuse my French,” Bohn says stiffly, “but I don’t give a fuck what some ten year old has to say about me or my relationship, Ben. And I don’t want you to, either. What do you think matters more: coming home at the end of the day to a happy household with people who love you, or some awful thing a snot-nosed child said because he doesn’t know any better?”

“. . . The first thing,” Ben mumbles. 

“Cool,” Bohn agrees, “me too. So I would like it if you came home sans bloody lip and black eye so I don’t have a fucking heart attack when you walk through the door. Okay?”

“Kay.”

Duen’s pretty sure his heart is going to explode out of his chest or something, and he sinks down into the passenger seat as far as his seatbelt will let him, ignoring Thara’s concerned noise as he does so. “I miss you guys already,” he whispers.

“I miss your food,” Ben responds way too quickly. It’s the typical reply of a child, and Duen snorts out a laugh. “Oh! Also you.”

There’s a bit of a clamor, and then the phone clicks in his ear as he’s taken off speaker. “Call me before you go to sleep, okay?” Bohn asks. “I have to sit down and discuss what’s a fair punishment for defending my honor and then order takeout like a spoiled and starving socialite house-husband missing his doting partner.”

Something impossibly warm blooms behind Duen’s ribs. “I don’t think you can call yourself a socialite when you just hang out with the same dozen people all the time.”

“Our collective friend group would be very offended and put out if we expanded our circle to actual socialites and stopped inviting them over for every crowded dinner we host,” Bohn points out. 

There’s a little more to talk about in the previous statement, but not addressing it tastes a little better in that moment. It lets it ring truer, lace the miles between them with consideration for a future they can write together. “Your doting partner will make you a huge dinner of all your favorite foods when he gets back,” Duen smiles, hoping Bohn can hear how pleased he is with every syllable. 

“My- hold on.” He hears the distinct sound of a door shutting, and then Bohn’s voice lowers to a near whisper, “My doting partner better fuck me so hard I see stars first thing when he gets home or I’m going to be really ticked off.”

“I am hanging up,” Duen deadpans. “You’ve ruined the moment.” He smirks when Bohn huffs at that, and then adds, “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

~~~***~~~

When he calls on Monday, and again on Tuesday, things are much calmer. They chat in tired tones during lunch and before they fall asleep. Duen tries not to focus too much on how sometimes Bohn gets too quiet, how his sentences fall flat in odd places. Instead he trades stories of his day, of the other presentations and panels he’s had to sit through and how much Thara’s been whining about the reality television they’ve spent time watching when they’re in the hotel room. Bohn exchanges them with updates on Ben and occasionally Daonua since he’s picking them both up from school in Duen’s absence. He complains about the takeout being bland and the apartment being too cold, and Duen smiles into his pillow, perfectly capable of reading between the lines. 

On Wednesday evening he’s immediately put on speaker phone and greeted with the loud and prime swears and sounds of Bohn playing videogames with company. “Grand Theft Auto?” he guesses when he notes the screech of tires overlaid with intermittent gunshots. 

“Yes and _someone_ fucked up our heist in favor of trying to break my legs with a bat for fun!” Bohn snaps.

“For fun and for me time,” comes another voice, and Duen sits up so fast he gets a headrush.

“Oh my god are you and P’Frong having a sulk date?” he gasps.

On the other bed Thara chokes on his stale cup of coffee. Duen pulls the phone away from his ear and sets it down on the comforter, quietly turning it on speaker as Thara recovers. 

“A what?!” Bohn yells. “No! It’s just two guys spending time together beating the shit out of each other in a videogame.”

“Two guys missing their boyfriends and hanging out to sulk about it,” Duen says, muffling a laugh. 

“Bohn came by the flower shop to stare at roses and sigh today,” Frong says, and Bohn squawks in protest. There’s a clatter and a thump, the telltale sounds of someone throwing a pillow and missing by a good margin. 

“I caught you talking to that fucking lizard like it’s a person!” Bohn protests. “So you have no right to judge!”

Thara sets his coffee down safely on the table between the beds. “Cupcake is a person.”

Frong agrees with an audible hum. “Plus the two of you are literally together because of a lizard so I don’t want to hear your lizard slander.”

There’s dead silence as they consider this point, and then Duen decides not to think about it too much lest he start attributing too many good moments in his life to the time he punched his future boyfriend in the nose. “Can you get to a good place to pause or should I call back later?” he asks instead.

“I can pause,” Bohn replies immediately, and Frong groans in the background. “What’s up?”

“I had my presentation today.”

Bohn yelps, and there’s a shuffle as he takes the phone off speaker. Duen does so as well, gives Thara a wave and grabs his keycard from the table before ducking out in the hall. “How did it go?” Bohn asks in his ear with baited breath. 

“Really well,” Duen laughs as he leans against the wall, “but I think I wrote and rewrote that whole thing about a hundred times so I would hope it did. I won’t know my official marks until next month, but I got asked a lot of thoughtful, engaging questions and was able to answer them easily, so that’s good, right?”

“I wish I could have seen it,” Bohn laments. “I bet you were amazing.”

“It’s all medical jargon, you would have fallen asleep.”

Bohn snorts but clearly has no room to argue. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” he says, and the warmth in his tone makes Duen’s knees a little weak. God, he loves him. “You worked so hard, and you’re going to be such a good doctor.”

“You think so?” Duen breathes.

“I know so. I’m your best patient. If anyone’s review counts it’s mine.”

Duen laughs and slides down the length of the wall to sit down. He lets his head rest on his knees, curls his arms around them as he tucks the phone into his shoulder. “First of all doctor’s offices don’t get those kinds of reviews, you’re thinking of restaurants. Second of all, even if they did I think that might be a conflict of interest.”

“Don’t logic your way out of my compliment,” Bohn snaps. “Let me flatter you, stupid.”

“Ah, flattery proceeded by insults,” Duen muses. “My favorite.”

“You’re my favorite,” Bohn counters easily, and Duen buries his face in his knees lest any late night passerby see him blushing. “I’m so proud of you I don’t even have words for it, and I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve you.”

“ _Bohn_ -”

“You’re basically perfect,” Bohn continues unimpeded. “And you make me a better person because of how hard I want to do my best to be worthy of you. You’re going to be a great doctor, an _amazing_ doctor. I count every day I can call myself yours a good one.”

“Please don’t make me cry in the middle of a hotel hallway,” Duen chokes. “I’ll look like an idiot.” There’s so much more he wants to say, things he knows he shouldn’t over the phone. He hates that underlying note of self depreciation in those praises and desperately wishes he could chase away every ounce of it in person. “I love you,” he says once he has enough breath to, once he can get the words out around the lump in his throat. “And I miss you so much.” Those seem like the two most important points, the ones that need to be said now.

“Yeah?” Bohn says, and Duen hates the way his voice wavers just a little.

“ _Of course_.” He wants to tell him how proud he is of him too, but he also wants to save those words so he can savor the way they’ll make Bohn’s whole face light up. There are poetics to be waxed about how much he loves coming home to someone who loves him so wholly, how sometimes when he cooks dinner while Bohn entertains Ben and Daonua and can’t help but think about what a good dad he’ll be, how much he already is. He loves the way he laughs, the way he teases, and he counts the days by how many times his life is lit by moments filled with those things. He loves the book of pressed flowers Bohn keeps on their coffee table, the stupid graphic tees he’s let Duen choose for him and never complained about, and all the little spaces in his home he’d carved out for Duen long before he’d even moved in. Perhaps, almost selfishly, what he loves most of all is the way Bohn loves _him_ , unhindered and reckless and with every fiber of his being. He’d fallen for him without hesitation, and he’d never looked back. And Duen is more grateful for that than he can ever express. 

“I love you too,” Bohn says, and Duen hides his tears and his smile against the crook of his arm as he tucks the phone a little closer to his face as if that will somehow close the distance and time left between them. “Come home soon.”

~~~***~~~

Duen has his phone out during two panels in a row on Thursday before Thara finally asks him what the hell he’s up to. He hesitates only a moment before showing him the screen. 

Thara squints at it for a moment then leans back, raising an eyebrow. “Oh! Absence really does make the heart grow fonder, huh.”

“ _Ha ha_ ,” Duen grouses. “Do you have any helpful tips or do I have to just start wandering around the city after we get out for the day by myself?”

“I mean you should probably at least decide what you want before you get yourself lost looking for something willy-nilly,” Thara advises. He takes the phone from him, opens up a new tab and pulls up a list of nearby shops. “You know the general rules for this, right? The more expensive the better. Go high quality too or don’t even bother.”

Duen clears his throat nervously, “I don’t think he’s going to care about either of those things. But regardless, I’m not an idiot. I’ve been saving up.”

Thara’s eyebrows climb towards his hairline, “You have?”

“It’s not going to be anything super fancy,” Duen mutters, taking his phone back to eye up the locations Thara has chosen for him to look at. “But again, I don’t think that matters. And his family can stuff it if they try and pick a fight over it. I think . . . I _hope_ he’ll like whatever I choose just because it was me that chose it.”

“You could let let him offer it to you instead,” Thara reminds, “since his folks have more money than _God_.”

“No,” Duen objects immediately. “I want to do it. It has to be me, I think. It’ll mean more that way. He asked me to be his boyfriend, so this one is on me.” He grins, tilts his phone against his face to hide the blush spreading over his cheeks. “Ah, sorry. I’m excited.”

“Just don’t stay out too late, we have that early morning panel to go to tomorrow. The one on the emerging field of genetic manipulation?”

“Do I have to attend or can I skip on the principle of ethics?” Duen asks with a side-eye. Thara just shrugs. “Fine, I won’t stay out late. But you have to answer my texts if I send you pictures to help me decide!”

“Or I could just let you drag me along.”

“Even better!”

Duen looks back at his phone again, saves a couple images that pique his interest off one of the shop’s websites, and then shoots Bohn a quick heart over Line just because.

He gets one back immediately.

~~~***~~~

Saturday morning dawns too early with Duen’s phone ringing under his pillow before the sun is even fully over the horizon. He fumbles for it for awhile, his mind too fogged by sleep to answer it accurately on the first swipe. The second try is successful though, and he sits up to hold it to his face with a yawn. “What time is it?” he mumbles.

“I-I think I’m having a panic attack,” Bohn’s voice chokes out in his ear.

Duen’s eyes snap open and he flings the covers off to get to his feet. “What?” he hisses, barely keeping it together enough to try and be mindful of Thara still sleeping just a few feet away. “What happened? No, don’t tell me. Just,” he paces to the window, back to the bed, before whirling towards the bathroom and locking himself away in the relative solitude of it. “Take a deep breath, okay? I’ll do it too, and then we’ll hold while I count to five.”

Bohn doesn’t answer but Duen listens intently for the audible inhale and starts counting. “Alright exhale. Good, you’re doing so good. Inhale again?” He counts and tries to settle himself, too, taking up a seat with his back to the door. “And exhale. There you go. Good. Inhale again? Close your eyes if you haven’t already, just listen to me. Exhale.” His heart is hammering in his chest, and he swallows down against his own mounting terror to focus on the sounds on the other end of the line. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realizes he’d expected this, felt it brewing in the weird atmosphere that had proceeded his leaving, the way Bohn had clung to him but then stepped back, hidden his unease behind smiles that in hindsight came too easily. But it still doesn’t make sense to him, he still can’t figure out what triggered it. He can’t get hung up on that now though. “Inhale. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Exhale. Good.”

Bohn’s breath hitches but otherwise stays even. Duen hates how easily the image of him curled up in bed springs to mind, how his free hand is probably fisted in his hair, his eyes squeezed shut and his knees pulled up to his chest, the sheets pooled around his feet where they’ve been kicked aside. “I’m sorry,” Bohn whispers after awhile, once he's steady enough to do so, and Duen covers his mouth to muffle his own shuddering noise of relief. “I didn’t want to wake you, I know you must be tired and-”

“Bohn,” Duen interrupts. “It’s okay. Just . . . Can you tell me what happened?”

It can’t be nothing, not so suddenly. Whatever has been bothering him, whatever had kept him quiet and on edge must have boiled over, come to a head. 

“It’s stupid,” Bohn laughs, but it comes out so strained. Duen closes his eyes and pulls his knees up, leans his forehead against the arm he folds across the top of them. “It’s really stupid.”

“Please just tell me. I promise I won’t be mad.” How could he ever?

“I . . . I was going to take a shower and I noticed . . .” He inhales sharply and the following exhale staggers out of him. “Duen, all my marks are _gone_.”

It takes Duen a long second to realize what he means, and the moment he does he wants to cry. It’s not like Bohn has never said it before, never whispered, “ _I like knowing I’m yours_ ,” when Duen has left bruises on his skin. He has. Over and over and over again. And somehow it just hadn’t clicked how important that small, continued gesture had become. Neither of them had noticed. It’s been so commonplace, years of Bohn waking up with the physical, unshakable proof of his affection. The idea that he would be unsettled without them isn’t as shocking as the fact that neither of them had realized that was what was wrong. “Oh _god_ ,” Duen whispers as he buries his face against his knees, “I’m _so sorry_ , Bohn.”

“It’s not your fault,” Bohn says weakly. 

“But I noticed!” Duen protests. “I saw that they were fading and I just thought, ‘I’ll do that when I get back’ and I didn’t even think-”

“It’s not like I was oblivious to it either,” Bohn sighs, and he still sounds so broken, each syllable an effort. “Everything felt off. I could have put two and two together.” He grows quiet, and Duen listens to the even, if shaky, breathing over the phone. “It’s stupid because I know better by now, you know?” he chokes out. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. I know you love me. But I-” This time the hitch in his voice is unmistakable, wet, and Duen squeezes his eyes shut against the sound of it. “It made me feel better to see it. I like having proof of you on me. _I like knowing I’m yours_.”

“ _Bohn_. You _are_.” He knows it’s not enough to say it though, not right now. It’s not enough to make up for an absence that has not been felt in five years. “You are,” he repeats fiercely anyways. “ _You are_.” There are still two more days left before he flies home. It has to be enough. 

Bohn sucks in another long, shuddering inhale. “I know. _I know_. I just . . . I feel _empty_.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind Duen wonders if, for some people, this is too much. It must be. But somehow it only makes him love Bohn more, solidifies his resolve and burns it brighter. He loves these things as well, the harder moments, the ones that reveal the little cracks he’s not sure he can ever fix. He loves them because they’re a part of Bohn, too. “It’s okay,” he soothes, trying to keep his own uneven breaths out of his words. “Can you get up? Go over to the hamper by the bathroom? I didn’t do laundry before I left, and I know you definitely haven’t either.”

“Nope,” Bohn says without a trace of guilt. 

“There should still be a shirt or two of mine in there. Put one on,” Duen instructs. “One of the button ups so it’s not too tight.”

Bohn gasps, “Baby, you’re a fucking genius.”

“Soon to be a PHD genius,” Duen reminds. He presses his ear closer to the phone, listens to the sounds of Bohn setting his own aside and the rustle of fabric. There’s a deep, steady inhale, then another, and Duen heaves out a breath of his own. “Better?”

“A little,” Bohn admits quietly, picking up the phone again. “It smells like you.” There’s some more rustling, and then, so softly Duen almost cries all over again. “I’m really tired now. Can you stay on the line though? At least until I fall asleep.”

It’s too late for him to rest anyways before the conference resumes for the day, and even if it wasn’t Duen would say yes. “Of course,” he murmurs. “Do you want me to talk to you? Sing you a song?”

“God fucking forbid,” Bohn says dryly, and he almost sounds like his normal self again. “No. Just . . . Stay with me.”

“Always.”

They have so much to talk about when he gets home, Duen thinks as he listens to Bohn's breathing slowly ease into the even tempo of sleep. He mulls over those things instead of the half hour of anxiety behind them, or the lingering guilt of noticing what was wrong and dismissing it as something meaningless. They wouldn't be human without mistakes, and in the long run they'll both forgive this one, even though right now it feels raw and hollow.

Duen focuses on the tomorrow, the soon, the later. He closes his eyes and presses the phone to his ear and imagines a familiar warm weight against his back. A week is too long to go without such comforts after all, but it's so little time in a story he's ready to set in stone.

And still Monday can't come quite soon enough. 

~~~***~~~

“If you come home and smell smoke I promise we only burnt one dish towel.”

Duen puts his head in his hands where he sits in the back of the taxi. For fuck’s sake he isn’t even out of the airport pickup line yet. “A dish towel? Can I ask how or am I going to get mad?"

Bohn laughs nervously on the other end of the phone, “I think some things are best left as mysteries. The cake is okay though, mostly. And if it isn’t you’re going to pretend it is because I can not deal with Ben and Daonua crying on top of everything else.”

Duen purses his lips and quietly contemplates the atrocity that might await him. Daonua is pretty adept at cooking, but Ben has inherited Bohn’s Burn The House Down disease, clearly. A dish towel? _A dish towel!?_ “Did you try and put the fire out by swatting it with the towel?” he asks with the severe and immediate understanding of someone who knows the people involved way too well.

“It’s a mystery,” Bohn reiterates. “I’m hanging up now to help them frost the cake. See you soon!”

He hopes it wasn’t the dish towel with the little chickens on it, damnit. That one’s his favorite. 

One burnt kitchen accessory isn’t enough to dampen his mood though, and Duen spends the rest of the ride making sure everything else for the next few days is squared away. He doesn’t have any shifts at the hospital till Thursday, and after a quick and pleading text to his mom to pick up the kids in an hour that he hopes doesn’t come off as desperate as he feels he sets his focus on the important things. Should he make it a grand gesture, or go for something more quiet? He’s leaning towards the latter, his heart thundering in his chest as he thinks of the intimacy of doing it in the private solitude of their own home. It is, after all, the little moments that he cherishes above all the others. They’ve been made of big confessions in silent minutes; a bedroom, a hospital ward, a porch in the dead of night. He wants to continue the way they started, just like that.

The second he gets through the door he’s almost bowled over by two screeching eleven year olds. Daonua gets her arms around his neck and Ben latches onto his side, every bit as much of a leech as his cousin. “Welcome back!” Doanua practically yells in his ear. “We made cake!”

There’s frosting on her cheek, and somehow Ben seems to have gotten batter in his hair. Duen crouches down to embrace them both and try and clean a bit of that up. He just gets a fiesty Ben for his efforts though, and Doanua ducking away from the both of them to grab the cake from the counter and hoist it precariously over her head. 

Bohn is behind her and snatching it away from danger almost immediately. “Everyone settle down!” he chides, and Duen doesn’t miss the way his breath catches a little, the nervous thrum that’s starting to make itself known in the air. God, it’s been a _week_. 

“Why don’t you guys cut the cake,” he says, releasing Ben so both kids can scramble up onto the stools on the other side of the counter and begin painstakingly deciding slices. “Bohn? You want to help me with my suitcase?”

He watches Bohn blink, the tiniest, confused frown marring his features before his eyes widen as it sinks in. Ever the master of subtlety, he says, “Oh. The suitcase. Yep,” and then grabs the handle of Duen’s suitcase to awkwardly and quickly drag it off into the bedroom. Duen loves him so much it _hurts_.

He takes his time, makes sure to compliment the cute attempts Daonua made to form flowers in the frosting with swirls of food coloring that will probably make his tongue blue. Ben shows him the remains of what is, thankfully, one of his least favorite dish towels, and he praises them both for knowing to smother an oil fire rather than try and beat it to death with something just as flammable. By the time he wanders back to the bedroom Bohn has started sorting his clothes from the suitcase into piles of what needs to be washed and what doesn’t, and Duen spares a second to note that he hasn’t found what’s hidden in the zippered side pocket before he closes the door behind him.

Bohn straightens up the second it clicks shut, abandoning the open suitcase by the dresser in favor of practically throwing himself across the room. He gets his arms around Duen’s shoulders, crowds him back against the door as his fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt and twist hard enough to strain the seams. “Are the kids leaving soon?” he asks, choked, and Duen just about breaks his back with how hard he hugs him. It leaves them both breathless, shaking, but he wants to be closer, wants to take and give and give and take until they’re made of the same mixed remnants of stardust both inside and out. “I need you,” Bohn says against his shoulder, and the cadence of those words rings with more than just a primal want.

Duen pulls back, ignores Bohn’s protests at the lack of contact, and gets a thumb into the collar of his shirt to drag it aside. “Come here,” he urges, as if they aren’t already as close as they can get. But Bohn understands immediately, tangles his fingers in Duen’s hair before he even sinks his teeth into the thin flesh over his collarbone. The whimper the action draws forth from Bohn’s lungs is almost more than he can stand, agonizingly needy in all the ways he loves best, and he lingers longer than he normally would. The bruise that blooms is dark, leaves a copper tang on the tip of his tongue, and he kisses the spot once, twice, unwilling to part so soon even though he knows he’ll have as much time as he needs in less than an hour. “Mine,” he whispers against Bohn’s neck, a verbal reassurance lest he somehow forget. He’s happy to provide this security, to stake this claim, and chases away Bohn’s shuddering relief with hands smoothed over his back, another kiss pressed to the mark. “ _Mine_.” 

This time when he pulls away he actually does so fully despite Bohn’s displeased huff. “My mom will be here to get the kids pretty soon, so I should probably at least eat the cake they made before then,” he reminds. “But if you want to stay in here that’s fine. Don’t let me forget I have something to give you later, though.”

He’s not sure why he’s surprised when Bohn’s gaze immediately darts down and fixates southward, he should know better by now. “Oh?” Bohn leers, laughing when Duen gets a hand into his hair and musses it up. 

“Not _that_ -”

“Aw!”

“But I’ll do that too.”

Bohn’s breath hitches, and Duen leans in to steal the desperate little noise he makes. “ _Yes_. Yes, yes, yes. _Please_.”

Duen hums in agreement, leaves a kiss in the corner of his mouth, trails another down the line of his jaw. “Why don’t you go shower while I try my best not to get murdered by the kids’ cake concoctions. And leave my suitcase alone,” he warns when he steps away. “You’ll spoil your gift.”

“You’re my gift and you already spoil me,” Bohn smirks, and Duen sucks in a long, steadying inhale to keep himself from jumping him right that second.

The cake is surprisingly edible once he figures out which side is the burnt one under the frosting. Duen praises it accordingly, promises to try and do his best to save Ben from the genetic propensity of setting the house on fire, and lets Daonua regale him with everything she’s done in school since he’s been gone. In the back of his mind though he’s tuned in to the noise of the shower, the quiet tells of the bathroom door leading into their bedroom opening and closing. By the time his mom finally arrives to whisk the kids away to his family home he’s about ready to vibrate out of his skin, and he promises to sit down to dinner with her next weekend to tell her all about the trip if she will please leave before he spontaneously combusts. 

He has his shirt off pretty much the second he locks the door behind them, not even caring about the trail of clothes he’s leaving in his wake as he rushes back towards the bedroom. “Eager!” Bohn exclaims when he sees him, as if he isn’t spread out on top of the sheets like he knows he’s the real dessert of the night. Duen admires the way his new mark stands out against the rest of him, how it matches the flushed, already hard line of his cock, and when he settles himself on the bed, brackets Bohn in with his arms and legs, he decides to make it perfectly clear that he fully intends to absolutely _devour him_. 

"Safewords?” he asks, and grins when Bohn’s eyes widen with a truly unprecedented level of excitement. 

“Green, yellow, red. If I can’t speak, two taps to your shoulder or thigh. If I can’t reach either, two taps to the nearest surface,” Bohn recites, each word well ingrained into him by now. He fumbles to the side, grasps a bottle of lube that’s been shoved between the pillows and presses it into Duen’s waiting hand. “I’m ready,” he says quickly, as if Duen can’t already see that, can’t tell from the way he spreads his legs, open and waiting. “Please just-” Duen gets a grip on his right thigh, presses his leg up against his chest as he slicks himself up. “Please, please please. I need it. Baby, _please_ -”

He sinks in in one hard, smooth go, relishes in the way Bohn chokes on his broken pleas and scrabbles at his arms for purchase as Duen drags him closer by the hips, grinds as deep as he can. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bohn gasps. “ _Finally_.”

Duen wonders if Bohn needs this just as much as the marks, and figures that he probably does. He’d said his skin had felt empty, and Duen’s sure he’d ached for this, too. There’s time to fix those hollow spaces now though, to leave bruises on skin and take and take and _take_ until he’s satisfied. He lets Bohn drag his head down, guide him to where he needs it, coax him through every centimeter he wants to see marred. Each mark left only spurs him on, makes him hunger for more. He’ll bruise Bohn’s thighs too, his hips, leave imprints where his fingers have pressed into the flesh and muscle too hard. In sharp contrast his movements remain unhurried, drawn out until Bohn is practically trembling and on edge with every thrust, every deep, slow grind, whimpering with mounting desperation. He’s never said it outloud, but this is Duen’s favorite part. Where Bohn desires to be claimed, he’s enraptured by the acuteness with which he’s needed. 

It always shines through the best when he can get Bohn to start babbling, when he’s unable to not beg for what he wants. His fingers dig into Duen’s shoulders as he leaves a mark in the hollow of his throat, times every roll of his hips with another suck to his skin. “Fuck, _fuck_ ,” Bohn pants, his thighs squeezing around Duen’s waist and his heels digging into the small of his back as if he can somehow pull him closer, seat himself deeper. He’s chasing every thrust in the ripples and wakes of his own body, his hands clenching and his nails digging into Duen’s back. “ _Hah-_ god, you don’t even know how much I- _ah! Fuck!_ How much I nee- _ah_ -needed this. Baby please, please, _please_.”

Duen likes to know what he’s being asked for, delights in forcing Bohn to say it, to admit every filthy thing he craves from him. “You have to tell me what you want,” he murmurs between breaths. He hikes Bohn’s legs up a little higher around his waist, curls over him to steal another breathless whine from his lips and pulls back to watch how the position makes precum drip down from his untouched cock and pool obscenely over his abdomen. He’s close, and Duen intends to take him apart just like this. “Tell me,” he urges, and gives in just a little as he rocks in faster, harder, and savors the strangled, “ _Hah-ah!_ ” it earns him.

Bohn pulls him down again, buries his face against the crook of his neck so Duen can feel every hot and broken breath against his skin. “Want- _ah, god_ , want you to come in me. Want to be ma- _hah_ \- marked both inside and out.”

Now _that’s_ a new one. Duen shudders and bites his lip, suddenly struggling not to tip over the edge himself. “You have such a dirty mouth,” he scolds, taking Bohn’s face between his hands and dragging his teeth over the juncture of his jaw, biting a telling mark below his earlobe. 

“You _asked_ ,” Bohn reminds, and it would have come out as almost a laugh if it weren’t for the way his back arches at the end of it, how he tenses up in one long, trembling shout, and spills across his stomach. 

Duen drinks in every second of it, mesmerized by each thick, fresh rope that splashes over his skin. “Holy shit,” he breathes, “ _Holy shit_.” There’s so much, and Bohn is still panting, still shaking with aftershocks that leave his cock twitching between them, dripping even as he flags. “You didn’t touch yourself at all while I was gone, did you?”

It takes Bohn a second to get a big enough breath in to respond to that, to crack open his eyes and level him with a glare that might have been reproachful if it wasn’t for his flushed cheeks, the way he whimpers around the first syllables. “I _tried_ ,” he gasps, “but I couldn’t finish. It has to be _you_.”

“Me neither,” Duen admits hoarsely, and Bohn chokes around an unmistakable mewl of _want_. 

Bohn winds his arms over his shoulders again, tightens his legs around his waist. “It’s mine then,” he whispers into the crook of Duen’s neck, and Duen falters on the next thrust, circles his hips instead in an intense and desperate need to drive deeper, harder. “All mine. I want all of it, want you to fill me up.”

Duen chokes on a moan, and braces a hand on the bed as he buries himself inside, coming undone in uneven jerks and jagged exhales. “ _Bohn_.”

“Don’t pull out,” Bohn growls before he’s even finished, his legs locking around him like a vice. “Don’t you dare.”

Duen nods, lets himself fall down to his elbows as he nuzzles into the side of Bohn’s hair line. Anything. Everything. “Can I turn you over?” he asks. He knows what Bohn wants, but it’s going to take him a bit, awhile to wait for the world to stop spinning before he can even think about getting hard again. “I want to mark up your back.”

There are more permanent ways to declare his intentions, he knows, but he’s saving those for later. For now he’s more than happy to provide them in this way, to scatter Bohn’s skin with the proof that he needs to ground himself. Bohn nods after a heartbeat, and with some maneuvering, a careful bit of oversensitive gasping, grinding, Duen manages to settle him on his stomach across the sheets. 

He kneads the tension out of Bohn’s shoulders first, digs his thumbs into coiled knots of muscle and follows each touch of his fingers with a lingering press of his lips. Bohn shudders against every mark left on his skin, drags in one breath after the next like he’s on the edge of shaking apart. Duen watches the bruises bloom like petals down over his spine, keeps an eye on the way Bohn’s fingers fist into the sheets, how he squeezes his eyes shut where his head is tilted to the side, his cheek pressed into the pillow. “I love you,” Duen murmurs against the base of his neck, because there’s never a wrong moment to say it, to punctuate the proof he’s leaving with the words he’s laced into every atom of this body. The next breath is sharp, hitched and wet, and Duen is careful to kiss away any tears before they can fall. “Tell me what you need,” he whispers.

“More,” Bohn chokes desperately, as if he can ever be fully satisfied, as if there won’t always be more for Duen to give, to take. “I-I’ll tap out when I’m ready. Just . . .” He shakes his head, gasps as Duen gives an experimental, gentle roll of his hips. “I need it,” he pleads, “until I can’t take anymore. Please, _please_.”

Duen drags his hips up, gets Bohn’s knees under him so that when he thrusts in he hits just the right angle. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, the first time he’s let Bohn dictate how far, how long, how fast, how much. He gets consumed by his own need, and Duen loves to watch him fall apart in the throes of that insatiable desire. And it’s never his own stamina he has to worry about, not with one orgasm under the belt, it’s Bohn’s.

He falls apart quicker the second time, spills over Duen’s hand in strangled cries. “Green,” he insists when Duen runs a hand through his hair as he rolls him on his side. His eyes are still hooded, still hungry. 

Bohn keens with oversensitivity the next time Duen presses in and pulls one of his legs up over his shoulder as Bohn lies on his side and hooks an ankle between both of his partner’s. He turns his face away, chokes out profanities in harsher and heavier pants and twists the sheets between his fingers until he comes a third time, a slow drip and slide, half hard and overspent. “Green,” he insists again, but Duen can read that he’s almost at his limit.

He drags Bohn up and into his arms, sits them back against the headboard and holds him up. Bohn sinks down in centimeters, each breath he draws in shuddering through him until Duen takes over, guides his hips down in gentle presses until he’s fully seated again. “Want you to come again,” Bohn breathes against his ear where he’s let his arms fall in languid loops over Duen’s shoulders. He’s almost boneless, and he shivers into every thrust, his heartbeat reverberating through Duen’s entire body with each uneven moan. “Can you come again for me, baby? I’ll be done then,” Bohn promises. “You’ve been so good to me, _so good_ . But I- _ah_ \- I want to feel you again. Come on, baby. _Please_.” He chokes on another whine and groans into the crook of Duen’s neck as he comes for the fourth successive time, just a few small, almost dry spurts, clenching down over and over and over again with each one until Duen bites down on his shoulder and obliges him to shake apart in crashing tides. 

Bohn goes limp in his arms and taps a palm weakly against the headboard once, twice. 

“Alright,” Duen soothes. He threads his fingers through his hair, glides his hand down from Bohn’s scalp to the base of spine, slowly, carefully, chasing away the last fragile trembles that wrack his body. “I’ve got you.”

He lowers them down onto the mattress before he pulls out, wary of making a mess they’ll have to sleep in even though he’s pretty sure it’s unavoidable. Bohn hisses at the loss, and Duen watches, curious as he opens one eye and seems to debate with himself before shaking his head. 

Duen cracks a smile, presses a kiss to his temple and tries not to laugh when Bohn whines. “I think four is plenty,” he consoles. “It’s a new record for you.”

“Don’t fucking tempt me,” Bohn mutters. “Records are made to be broken.” He’s still oversensitive when Duen comes back with a bowl of warm water and a washrag, and shies away from his touch until he’s scolded, pinned down with a hand to his leg.

“I’ll be very impressed if you can get to five,” Duen teases. “What are you now, twenty-five? You’re only going to get older.”

Bohn squirms away from him with a huff and leans over the side of the bed to try and snag the comforter from the floor. He gives up almost immediately, face planting into the pillows as Duen sets the bowl aside and does it for him. “Hey,” he says, all faux brightness so that Duen’s already laughing before he even finishes what he’s going to say, “how about you shut up?”

It’s still early evening, and Duen finds his gaze drawn to his suitcase as Bohn bundles him up against his chest and buries his face in his shoulder. They have time, he decides, listening to Bohn’s breathing quickly lag into the even dulcets of sleep. He wants to do this right.

~~~***~~~

Sometime around mid morning the next day Duen switches off the burner and goes to retrieve his boyfriend for breakfast only to find him standing in front of their bathroom mirror. He’s turning this way and that, studying every mark decorating his skin with tentative touches of fingers to each one and quiet, assured smiles. Duen lingers silently in the doorway until he looks up enough to meet his eyes through the mirror, takes it all in, and lets his own surefire warmth unfurl in his chest. Yeah, this is the moment. 

“I got you something,” he says, and grins when Bohn’s eyes widen.

“Oh yeah! You said that yesterday.” His hand is held out, his fingers making a grabbing motion, and Duen bites his lip to suppress a laugh.

He strides into the bathroom and hooks a hand around Bohn’s hip to make him face the mirror again. “Close your eyes, okay? I’ll get it. Don’t open them until I say so.”

Bohn huffs but does as directed. “Surprises make me nervous!” he calls after him, and Duen shakes his head as he pulls the little paper bag from his suitcase and brings it back in. 

“What about good surprises?” he asks slyly. There’s only been a few times where he’s been bold enough to remove Bohn’s earrings, wary of doing it wrong when he doesn’t wear any himself, so he’s not shocked when Bohn shivers bodily into his touch when he does it now. Duen presses up against his back, kisses his neck, reassures him with weight and touch while he works and finally sets them aside. From the bag he draws out one of two boxes and studies the contents of the first with a heavy, anxious stutter of his heart. “Don’t squirm,” he warns when Bohn starts to do just that at the first press to his earlobe. “When have I ever hurt you?” He pauses, considers, and then amends, “Without strictly being asked?”

That earns him a snicker, and Bohn relaxes back against him in the wake of it, “Alright, alright.” He hums and leans into the touch when Duen gets to work on the other side. “Your heart is _pounding,_ ” he whispers as Duen drops his chin to his shoulder and winds his arms around his middle. “Can I look now?”

Duen’s bought him jewelry before, spent hours agonizing over which earrings he’ll like best, what necklace chains match his usual attire, but this is different. He waits with baited breath as Bohn peers at himself in the mirror, twists his head from side to side so that the gilded dumbbell studs catch the light. “Oh!” he exclaims, and Duen lets him go so that he can look closer. Bohn rubs a tentative thumb over the front of one of them, tilts it so he can see the engraving reflected back at him. “They’ve got little roses carved . . . into . . .” Duen can see the exact moment it sinks in, the hitch of his breath and the way he freezes around it. “It’s gold,” he says hoarsely.

“Yes,” Duen confirms, his heart pitching in rabbit-rapid tempos in his chest. “24-karat.”

Bohn’s eyes dart up to meet his through the mirror and he stares at him, his lips parting. “ _Duen_ ,” he breathes.

“There’s a matching ring, too,” Duen points towards the bag, “if you wanted something more western. I picked them out before you had your panic attack, just so we’re clear, and I’d been thinking about it for even longer. But I didn’t want to wait to give them to you after I was away.” He knows he’s rushing, stumbling over his words. It doesn’t seem to matter though, because Bohn turns to lean back against the counter and steady himself, watching him with such rapt, fond attention that Duen knows his answer already. “I want to make sure you know you’re mine every day, okay? To have proof you don’t have to wear on your skin, that you can show off. _I love you_ ,” he says, and does it so fiercely it takes his own breath away. “I love you _so much_. I want to come home to you every day for the rest of my life. I want to buy a house with you. I want to raise kids with you.” He’s ready when Bohn chokes at that one, surges into him to bury his face against his shoulder, and catches him with open arms. “You make me a better person, too,” he whispers, holds him close, closer, takes him in in time with the dual rhythm of their hearts. “I want to marry you.”

“Roses,” Bohn says against his neck, half a laugh, half a sob. “You got me Tong Mun with _roses_ on them.” He’s shaking, but when he pulls back, frames Duen’s face in his hands and kisses him, he’s smiling. “You always bring me flowers.”

“You asked me to,” Duen reminds. “Now quit giving me a heart attack, is that a yes?”

Bohn blinks at him like he’s an idiot, draws his thumbs over the corners of his eyes to chase away the tears that have gathered there for him, too. “Of course it’s a yes. But!” He holds up a finger between them before Duen can kiss him again and seal the deal. “I get to do the Sin Sod since you did Tong Mun. It’s only fair. Also I can afford it.”

Duen arches an eyebrow, “Oh? You’ll pay the dowry? How kind of you.”

“I’ll pay in a house,” Bohn clarifies, and this time he lets Duen kiss him, wraps his arms around his shoulders and lets himself be pressed back against the bathroom counter. “Five bedrooms?” he asks breathlessly when Duen pulls back.

“And a yard,” Duen agrees. He punctuates it with another kiss, another promise. 

“Two floors,” Bohn goes on. “With a living room for parties and a playroom for the kids.”

Duen leans back, presses their foreheads together, and stares at the wild, unbridled happiness reflected back at him in Bohn’s every feature. Normally he tries to savor the present moment, keeps his mind off the future lest he get too excited for things that are out of his grasp. But now it’s all tantalizingly within reach, close enough to touch and let himself imagine, his heart stuttering in his chest as he pictures coming home to all of that, to Bohn, to a family of his own making. “I love you so much,” he laughs, pressing a kiss to Bohn’s cheek. He brings himself back into the here and now, treasures each second shared between them and takes the time to admire his engagement gift on his boyfriend’s- no, his _fiance’s_ ears, and dream of a long and happy life ahead.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost certain I've fucked up the entire concept of Tong Mun (gold engagement gift) and Sin Sod (dowry). But it was unquestionably the longest I've ever searched for info only to yeild absolutely fuck all. Thanks, google! I couldn't even find more than a few pics of proper Tong Mun gifts so I went "fuck it. The fic takes place in 2025 and I'm pretending Thailand is gonna have gay marriage by then anyways so why not just vague the hell out of this too?"
> 
> So sorry for cultural inaccuracies but also I don't think I want to change it because engagement earrings = best. 
> 
> When I was writing this I considered Gravitationally Yours as an exploration of a beginning, so when it was decided that this fic was a sequel I wanted it to thus be an exploration of a future. I hope that rang true. 
> 
> Special thanks to Luce, HyacinthSoul, and Hansolace for putting up with my shit and ranting about this fic for a week. Hope it was tasty and worth it lmao.
> 
> ANYWHO love to hear from you all as always. Comments make my entire day. Thanks for reading!!!


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